Known in the showbiz circles as Kojokritical, Lord S. K. Cudjoe, a former History Tutor and a two-term former Assembly Member of Nkroful in the Ellembelle District of the Western Region has called on the Electoral Commission to review its directives and hence consider carving separate Electoral Areas out of boarding second cycle institutions.

The political satirist who sung ‘Asem Beba’ and ‘Election Time’ just prior to Elections 2016; and ‘A Letter to the Nana President’ after the Elections 2016, expresses a strong opinion against the status quo of a big second cycle boarding school being part of an Electoral Area.

The Problem

Kojokritical goes on to explain that the situation creates a problem which society has been silent over, for far too long. “In a situation where the actual (main or mother community with the school as part of its Electoral Area) has a voting public lesser than that of the student and teacher voting population, it turns out to be that the school, which is but a subset of the community, has a greater voice in determining who becomes the Assembly Member for the Community”

Meanwhile, most of these students are likely to be boarders, who do not live or stay in the core community, but only happens to register as eligible voters, because of convenience; as they happen to be in school at the time of the Electoral Commission’s opening of the Voters’ Register for that purpose.

Just after completing the school, they leave behind the Assembly Member they chose for the community. Whether s/he performs well or poorly, it becomes none of their business, as they continue to the tertiary level, to go and decide for yet another community (all things being equal!). What makes this arrangement worse, is that a tutor in that school who might not necessarily have any strong bonds with the core community, but happens to be there just by virtue of his/her teaching job, could calculate on the strength of the student voting population, contest and most likely win as the Assembly Member for the core community including the school.

When such becomes the case, the following questions could help shape the call for attention to this lapse in the current arrangement:

1. How well do the challenges confronting that community become reflected in the voting result (as ‘determined’ by the school, than the mother community)? Do the two ‘Communities’ (put up as one Electoral Area) share the same aspirations?

2. How representative enough can the Assembly Member become to the core community, when s/he is not really imbibed in the socio-cultural dynamics of that ‘mother’ community?

3. How well can s/he foster the needed bond with other leaders (traditional authorities) of the community, towards effective community development?

4. What becomes the fate of the Electoral Area, should this teacher becomes transferred to a different school or institution far away from the Electoral Area, say from Ellembelle to another district where sheer travel distance discourages the Assembly Member’s functional presence in the community.

Moving Forward

The Electoral Commission needs to become cognizant of the above and many others, and consider carving separate Electoral Areas for second cycle boarding institutions, to enhance effective representation of the electorates at the floor of the MMDAs, albeit in relation to the requisite population of both the mother communities and the school’s

Asked what he is doing currently regarding his musical hobby, Kojokritical tells GhEvent.net

2020 is an amazing year for me. It’s loaded with interesting developments as far as the showbiz aspect of my life is concerned. On the music front, two main things are happening. Kritical Tymz Muzik is set to start shooting the video for Dzogbesoli. That aside, am currently busy at the studio already; just garnishing a great tune to serve music lovers who have a huge appetite for ‘developmental music’. Don’t ask of the title yet because it’s not a good habit to start ‘drinking’ the soup while the fufu is yet to be done for it!!